POWERSIM (PSIM)
Contents
• What is PSIM
• Circuit structure
• Getting started with PSIM
• Hands on examples
What is PSIM ?
• PSIM is a simulation package specifically
designed for power electronic and control
circuits
• It is manufacture by Powersim Inc.
([Link])
• It allows fast simulation and it has a friendly user
interface
• PSIM provides a powerful simulation
environment for power converter analysis,
control loop design, and motor drive system
studies.
Cont.
• The PSIM simulation package consists of three
programs:
1 SIMCAD circuit schematic editor (input: *.sch)
2 PSIM PSIM simulator (input: *.cct; output: *.txt)
3 SIMVIEW Waveform Processor (input: *.txt)
Circuit Structure
• A circuit is represented in PSIM in four blocks:
power circuit, control circuit, sensors, and switch
controllers.
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• Power circuit
The power circuit consists of switching devices, RLC branches,
transformers, and coupled inductors.
• Control circuit
The control circuit is represented in block diagram. Components in s
domain and z domain, logic components (such as logic gates and flip
flops), and nonlinear components (such as multipliers and dividers) can
be used in the control circuit.
• Sensor
Sensors measure power circuit voltages and currents and pass the values
to the control circuit.
• Control circuit
Gating signals are then generated from the control circuit and sent back to
the power circuit through switch controllers to control switches
Software/Hardware Requirement PSIM
• PSIM runs in Microsoft Windows environment
(95/98/NT/2000) on PC computers.
• The minimum RAM memory requirement is
32 MB.
Installing the Program
• A quick installation guide is provided in the
flier “PSIM - Quick Guide” and on the
CDROM.
• Some of the files in the PSIM directory are:
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Simulating a Circuit
• To simulate the sample one-quadrant chopper circuit
“[Link]”:
• Start SIMCAD. Choose Open from the File menu to load the
file “[Link]”.
• From the Simulate menu, choose Run PSIM. PSIM simulator
will read the netlist file and start simulation. The simulation
results will be saved to File “[Link]”. Any warning messages
occurred in the simulation will be saved to File
“[Link]”.
• If the option Auto-run SIMVIEW is not selected in the
Options menu, from the Simulate menu, choose Run
SIMVIEW to start SIMVIEW, and select curves for display. If
the option Auto-run SIMVIEW is selected, SIMVIEW will be
launched automatically.
Getting started
Example 1: 1st order system
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Example 2: voltage controller
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Example 3: semi-converter
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Insert the sources for the angle alpha and for
the enable signal
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Connect the gate signals, insert a simulation
control (50 ms) ands set all the parameters
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Run the circuit for alpha equals to 30, 60, and
90 degrees. Check the results